Being an account of how time has no meaning in a world that simply refuses to remain linear ...

For as long as I can remember, I have felt submissive in the presence of strong women. It never made sense to me. Of course, I can recognise it now as the natural state in which I belong, but for the longest time, I was confused by it, even ashamed by it.

I blame the society in which I was brought up for that. It is an overly masculine patriarchy and I dislike it thoroughly. By contrast, in ancient times, women enjoyed equal status to men in my country. It is ludicrous that organised religion, which claimed to free the souls of the people from the chains of paganism, led to the virtual enslavement (and not the kind that is consciously chosen!) of women within their own homes. As a result, even the tide of modernisation that has swept across our land with crushing changes in its wake, cannot undo in so short a time the backwardness that befalls my society when it comes to full equal rights.

The long and short of it is this:

Women still have a long way to go towards equality.

In their efforts to define what is feminine, they have in turn defined what is masculine (though this was in many ways determined by a patriarchal culture long ago).

Men are left with a set of outdated rules and guidelines that no longer apply in these changing times.

Men (and indeed women) who feel themselves constrained by definitions and expectations handed down to them and reflected back upon them, have no real place in this society.

Therefore those of us who are out of the loop, so to speak, must seek out others who are in a similar (or at least a comparable) position. This must needs be done by unorthodox means – Munches, the Internet, magazines, personal adds, etc.

But, what if a persons past is filled with shame for feelings that he could not explain at the time. What if the world has moved on to a degree, but his inner doubt, his anxieties have not? What then? What if he was to meet a woman who could truly accept him, even want him, for who and what he is?

If it is possible, then how could he prepare himself for her?

Two phrases came to me today from entirely different sources, both of whom mean a lot to me in very different ways:

“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’ "

-and-

"Love me the most, when I deserve it the least, because that's when I need it best."

One word stood out:
“Indebted”.